Mighty No More

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks have announced that they will be dropping the “Mighty” from their name for the 2006-2007 season. So why does that matter?Well, first of all, a team from Anaheim that isn’t adding names too many names to their team name is a miracle. Flashback to the announcement of the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”, and remember how much of a mouthful that was the first time you said it. The shortened name “The Angels” that most of the around-the-cooler sports fans would say became even more popular after the announcement of the longest team name in professional sports. And that is probably how the Duck’s owners came to this idea: the around the cooler sports fan naturally leaves off the “Mighty” and just says, “So, you catch the Ducks game last night?” It’s just the short-speak way of the 21st Century, applied to sports.

The team got the “Mighty” moniker with the purchase of an expansion team for Anaheim by the Walt Disney Company, to coincide with the release of “The Might Ducks” a hockey movie starring Emilio Estevez. It was a good movie in it’s own right, a staple in most of the kids of the 80’s movie libraries, including my own. It was even popular enough to spawn off two sequels, D2 and D3. And so the “Mighty Ducks” were born, an actual NHL hockey team, named after a team in a Disney movie. In the 2nd and 3rd movies, the team even wore the jerseys that the real Mighty Ducks were wearing at the time: in the movies it was the team’s away jersey of the time, which has barely changed at all between the jerseys of the movie and the jerseys on foreign ice now.

So why is this a big deal? Well for one,it makes sense since there are no “mighty” ducks in the Anaheim, California area, I’m pretty sure. Most sports fans will read it on ESPN.com, on the BottomLine of SportsCenter, or perhaps find out for the first time in this column. People have been dropping off the “Mighty” from the team’s name in casual conversation since the team was brought into existence for the 1993-1994 season. I’m pretty sure that the owners will take a serious look at it, considering the money that will have to be spent to change the logos, the jerseys, and anything on the official web site (the current URL is mightyducks.com), and in Arrowhead Pond that has the Mighty in front of Ducks. The “Mighty” was really only there for any intimidation purposes, because the name “Ducks” just doesn’t strike any kind of fear in your opponents mentality. Other than the owners, no one outside the hockey world, or perhaps outside of California will notice the change of the team’s moniker.

So here’s to you, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. And let’s hope that by any other name, you will play just as great.